Startup fundraising: Finding true believers vs. convincing skeptics

My partners and I at NextView talk a lot about how fundraising is about finding the true believers rather than convincing the skeptics. The energy that it takes persuading someone who starts with a bias not to invest is much better suited searching for additional prospects who want to believe in what you’re building. We’ve observed it repeatedly in our portfolio as Founder/CEOs seek additional rounds of financing: the engaged skeptics just never quite get there, but the entrepreneurs who cast the nets wide enough find someone who believes.

Because of this learning, we counsel our seed companies when raising a Series A to run a full & synchronized process with a broad array of firm sizes, types, and shades to determine what profile will become believers. It’s not until you have had a broad array of conversations are you able to tease out the profile of (and subsequently specific) firm(s) which will be attracted to your company.